When we think about assessing shoulder joint health – we can oversimplify this into two categories. People typically lack:
1) Stability
2) Mobility
Sometimes people fall into both categories.
If you have pain in your shoulder with reaching overhead, bench pressing, doing pushups, or feel constant clicking or popping – you likely have a deficit in one of these two areas.
Both limited stability and mobility pose their own issues in the shoulder joint (and surrounding joints).
For example, if you have limited overhead mobility, you might start to compensate through your neck or your low back in order to get into an overhead position. This can not only lead to shoulder issues, but can lead to other issues up and down the chain as well.
On the other hand, limited stability of the shoulder joint means someone might have a huge amount of flexibility through their shoulders but have trouble using their muscles controlling this range. This can cause instability in the joint and can cause things to shift and cause stress through the wrong structures.
The great news is that both of these things are modifiable, meaning you have the power to make a positive change in either direction. But first, assess, don’t guess! Not every exercise or mobility drill is a one size fits all. No surprise here, you can’t just slap on a random exercise and expect it to fix all your problems. Just like you can’t give someone a random medication and expect it to cure them.